WIPP National Partner Karen Barbour Appointed Co-Chair of Governor’s Commission on Small Business

The Barbour
Group’s President Karen Barbour is
Appointed Co-Chair of the Governor’s Commission on Small Business

Champion for
delivering surety bonding to small businesses joins Commission to represent and
provide opportunities for growth to Maryland
based small businesses

Westminster, MD – February 8, 2011 –
The Barbour Group, a
Maryland-based surety brokerage known for its passionate approach to helping
small businesses find bonding
solutions, announced today that President, Karen
Barbour has been selected to join and hold the position of
Co-Chair on Maryland’s
Governor’s Commission on Small Business. The Governor’s Commission on Small
Business is a 26 member Commission, made up of leaders of Maryland based small
businesses, the Senate President and the Speaker of the House, the Secretary of
Business and Economic Development, the Secretary of Housing and Community
Development, the Secretary of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, the Secretary of
General Services and the Secretary of the Governor’s Office of Minority
Affairs.

Originally created by Governor O’Malley in 2010, the
objective and goal of the Commission is to engage with communities across the
State to hear what entrepreneurs are facing and address the barriers that are
impacting their business growth. In addition, the Commission is responsible
for:

Recommending economic
policy development measures to the Governor and General Assembly;

Overseeing the implementation
of the Small Business Task Force recommendations;

Developing and
recommending a standard definition of small business;

Advocating for full
employment and skills upgrades to support business development and job
creation in emerging and growth industries;

Identifying
public/private partnership opportunities to supplement small business
economic programs and financial incentives; and

Identifying methods to
improve resource accessibility for small Minority Business Enterprises.

I am honored to gain appointment to the Commission as
Co-Chair and believe the outcomes will be critical to the betterment of small
businesses and business at large in the State of Maryland. I look forward to contributing my
experience and expertise to the Commission and working with fellow Commission
members to provide the resources and innovative solutions for our State’s small
businesses to continue to grow and be successful,” says Karen
Barbour, President of The Barbour Group.

Since Barbour founded The Barbour Group, in 2002, it has
seen consecutive annual sales growth of more than 45%. To date, Barbour has led
the company to achieve success in providing surety
bonds for the construction industry in more than 30 states and four
international countries. Barbour has made a conscious effort of going above and
beyond for her clientele including, being active in construction trade
associations to help address business issues impacting the contracting
industry. She has served as vice chair of the board of the Minority Building
Industry Association and on the boards of the American Subcontractors
Association of Baltimore and the Washington Building Congress.

A champion for small businesses, Barbour is active in public
policy and promotes legislation that improves the business climate for
contractors and other small businesses operating in the Mid-Atlantic region and
beyond. She has initiated, authored and driven landmark legislation in Maryland and on Capitol
Hill to develop an amendment to The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to
improve the Small Business Administration’s ability to provide contractor bond
guarantees. This legislation has enabled small business, woman-owned,
veteran-owned and minority firms more success in capturing bonding capacity.
The Barbour Group, LLC is a three-time recipient of Maryland’s TOP 100
Minority Business Enterprise(MBE) award and recently received the
distinguished Women’s
Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) Certification for Women
Business Enterprises (WBE), becoming the only surety bond focused agency in the
Mid-Atlantic region to be recognized with this gold standard and identified as
the agency of choice.

About The Barbour Group

The Barbour Group, based in Westminster, Maryland,
provides a comprehensive suite of surety bonding and commercial insurance
solutions for small, medium and large construction contractors as well as
Fortune 1000 companies. Led by President Karen
Barbour, a 26-year veteran of the surety bonding industry,
The Barbour Group is known for its dynamic problem-solving approach that
combines high degrees of industry knowledge and business acumen with equal
measures of passion, persistence and positivity. Unlike typical surety
bonding agencies, The Barbour Group combines the insight of a contractor and
the experience of a veteran underwriter to find creative business solutions for
customers and eliminate the uncertainties of the surety bond approval
process. For more information, call (866) 876-9610 or e-mail info@thebarbourgroup.com.